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Wednesday, November 22, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Guns, germs, and
gravy on everything
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By Jim Cornelius, Editor
Part of our family tradition is to
gather before the electronic hearth after
Thanksgiving dinner to hear a tale from the
fine PBS documentary series “We Shall
Remain — After the Mayflower.” We see
the saga of the first Thanksgiving unfold
from the point of view of the Wampanoag,
who greeted the arrival of the Pilgrims as an
opportunity to forge an alliance in the face of
destruction.
The film well captured an aspect of the
story that generally escapes mainstream
history: The people of the Wampanoag
Confederacy were living in a post-apocalyptic
world. A scant few years before the Pilgrims
landed, this numerous and prosperous people
was ravaged by a series of disease outbreaks
lasting about two years. Half or more of the
Wampanoag died. In some villages, mortal-
ity approached 100 percent. The village of
Patuxet was abandoned. Here was the site of
New Plymouth.
The diseases, which were probably a
strain of plague, were likely acquired through
glancing or indirect contact with European
sailors, traders and fishermen, who were pok-
ing along that coast (and in the case of the
French, exploring the north country) for many
decades before the Pilgrims ventured there.
The Indian populations had little to no resis-
tance to these diseases, and the result was like
something out of Stephen King’s “The Stand.”
Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and
Steel,” promotes the thesis that a variety of
variables, often seemingly minor in them-
selves, combine to shape the success or
destruction of societies throughout history.
Weather and crops, domestication of certain
animals, the development of certain tech-
nologies (steel and writing) and the ability or
inability to cope with or resist disease are the
true hinges of fate. The website for the PBS
series based on Diamond’s work notes :
“Much of the credit for European military
success in the New World can be handed to
the superiority of their weapons, their literary
See GRAVY on page 21
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PHOTO POBLIC DOMAIN
Initially positive relations between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag gradually broke down.
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